Who represents workers’ rights in Germany? The AfD has a clear message in election campaigns: “The workers’ red is now blue!” promised the alternative for Germany on posters for the 2017 federal election. Your parliamentary group employs around 100 people yourself – but many of them shake their heads at such slogans. This week you had to experience what happens when it comes to more co-determination in your own ranks.
Because a novelty was scheduled for Thursday. For the first time in the group’s four-and-a-half-year history, its employees wanted to decide on the establishment of a works council. However, influential parts of the faction tried to torpedo the advance at the last minute. On Wednesday, a fire email suddenly made the rounds. The works council initiators should be asked “whether they don’t join forces with a destructive hostility in which we will all lose in the end,” warned the so-called trust committee, a representative appointed temporarily by the leadership of the parliamentary group around Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel.
The internal mail reveals a heated argument. The Mail spoke of a “private war” within the faction and a “hate campaign”. And that a works council at the AfD has no legitimacy at all. There could be “no employee representation against the employer,” wrote the opponents of the project. “This means that tomorrow’s event cannot be successful at all,” the senders continued to warn.
However, the meeting was successful. Perhaps also because the supporters of a works council in the AfD had expected strong headwinds from the start. They reserved the parliamentary group hall, but feared that the leadership would take the room away from them again under some pretext – so the organizers rented three different conference facilities in the Bundestag.
Intransparent and encrusted
In the end, the meeting took place as planned in the parliamentary group hall – and ended with a clear vote. According to information from Süddeutsche Zeitung At the founding meeting, 33 employees voted for a works or staff council and only nine for the continuation of the legally weaker trust committee – the opponents were duped.
However, this means that a dispute that has been smoldering in the parliamentary group for months is now breaking out even further. Weeks ago, a heated argument broke out among speakers about allegedly non-transparent personnel decisions by the parliamentary group leadership. It is about the allocation of important posts and the amount of salaries, about an alleged “hire-and-fire mentality” in the parliamentary group in view of the austerity measures necessary because of the loss of mandates in the autumn. And about encrusted power structures. On the other hand, the employees now want to take stricter action internally via the works council.
MPs also know about some frustration. They see the starting signal for the works council as unmistakable criticism of their own management: “This can also be seen as a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the parliamentary group around Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel,” said the ranks of the deputies. A committee is now being set up in the parliamentary group to organize the election. Representatives are expected to be elected on May 19.
Especially for Chrupalla, who is also party leader and would like to be re-elected as such at a federal party conference in June, the fuss is inconvenient. Most recently, other AfD MPs have criticized him harshly because he initially did not distance himself from Russia’s war.
The leadership looks good
According to an insider, the majority of the board of directors was very critical of the establishment of a works council. Internally, there is talk of employees being threatened with sanctions from the group if they took part in the founding meeting. The AfD has it Süddeutsche Zeitung answered the allegations only indirectly and stated that the leadership of the parliamentary group respected the right of the employees to decide on the establishment of an interest group.
On Friday, the parliamentary group commented politely on the decision: “As the parliamentary group leadership, we are pleased about the commitment of our employees in founding an interest group and will support it.” But the employees don’t trust it. They fear that there may be a prolonged fight for their rights. One says: “When in doubt, go to court.”